


Too Much, Just Enough

by RocketRabbits



Category: Archie Comics, Archie Comics & Related Fandoms, Archie Comics (2015 Reboot)
Genre: Combines personalities from like four different canons, Drive in dates, Ethel muggs is beautiful and lovely, Ethel/dilton centric, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Jughead and kevin arent there very long, Not that it matters but asexual demipanromo jughead owns my soul thanks, Theyre not really lovers like thats a strong term but
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 15:44:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12171915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocketRabbits/pseuds/RocketRabbits
Summary: Ethel Muggs is used to being too much.Dilton thinks shes perfect.





	Too Much, Just Enough

**Author's Note:**

> I! Love! Ethel! Muggs!

Ethel Muggs was not a stupid girl. Jughead Jones would never fall in love with her. Archie Andrews had never made a pass. She wasn't stupid. But nobody has to love you for you to be confident.

Ethel knew being enemies with her mirror intimately. She knew her frazzled hair, had spent enough time running her tongue along her overbite to write a three-page essay on the sensation. Her hands were too large. Her voice was too loud. She wore her food as often as she ate it.

She didn't love herself. Not really. Nobody lives most of their lives called "Big" more than their name and can properly say they love themselves without therapy Ethel's family was much too working-class to afford. She did what she could, though. She used her too-loud voice for laughing, used her too-large hands for creating, used her too-tall torso to hold aaaaaallllllll the love she knew she was made for. So what if her heart broke a little if she looked in a store window? So what if some days she couldn't find a way to speak at all? She had more than enough to make up for it.

Dilton Doiley was the smartest boy anyone in Riverdale would ever meet. Everybody knew so. Dilton knew so. No sense bragging about it.

His brains had never been particuarly alienating. Nobody teased him, really, nobody excluded him or treated him like the detatched nerd he knew he was.

Still, he was never exactly invited, either.

It never really bothered them. He was happy to whip up whatever inventions the others' wacky hijinx needed. They even paid him, sometimes. Of course, of course, he knew he shouldn't make them things for free, but it was nice to help where he could. It was nice to feel needed. 

Ethel was not a stupid girl. She was no Dilton, but when they'd first been paired together in sophomore chemistry, both as freshman, he was happy to work with her, and even happier that she didn't heap the whole project onto him alone. He was by far the happiest with their A+ on the lab. If they both got a friend out of it, well, that was nice, too.

"Ethel," Dilton says, catching her at her locker one Friday afternoon of their junior year, "salutations! What're you up to this weekend?"

She sighs just the slightest bit and hopes he doesn't notice. "Nothing now, I guess. Why?"

Dilton notes the sigh just as he notes the "now", but he holds onto it and keeps going. "I was just wondering if you'd want to come to the drive-in with me this weekend. They're showing Plan Nine."

"Plan Nine?" Ethel snorts. "Isn't that a little silly?"

"So?"

"You just don't really seem the silly type."

"Are you calling me a stuffed shirt?" Dilton says, and brings his palm to his chest in mock offense.

"Dunno," Ethel teases, and reaches out to tug his starched collar, "maybe a little bit of a stiff."

"Gosh, harsh. A stiff you'd see a silly movie with, anyway?"

Ethel deliberates dramatically, closing her locker and squinting one eye, "yeah, sure. Wanna hash it out over Pop's?"

"A woman after my own heart. Oh, on the way, let me tell you about this facsinating article I read this morning. How much do you know about alternate universes?"

Dilton likes to talk. It's wonderful, honestly, that he has so much to say and so much drive to say it. Ethel knows she could butt in if she wanted to, add more of her own ideas or change the subject entirely, but she likes to hear him talk as much as he likes to do it. Besides, she's not sure how many other people do.

"I don't see Jughead here," he says when they pull in.

"Hey, ye of little faith, I don't just eat here for Jughead. How many other good diners are in this town?" Ethel takes a cursory glance around for Archie's car anyway, and tries to hide her disappointment. "He'll be here. I'm sure he's just wrapped up in Archie's weekly drama. He's very selfless like that."

Ethel doesn't really have a reason to believe good things about her classmates. Dilton knows the way they treat her, the way they talk behind her back. He's kind of in awe that she doesn't seem to have any ill-will at all.

"So," she says, "about this drive in?"

"Oh, right! I'll pick you up at seven thirty, since the movie starts at eight."

"Sounds great. I'm looking forward to it." Ethel takes a gulp of her soda and holds it a second before she swallows. "I don't get invited out a lot." Dilton know's this about her.

"Yeah," he says, "neither do I." Ethel knows this about him.

Kevin Keller walks in with Jughead at his heels, and Dilton excuses himself immediately. "Sorry, I have a question on our English paper, I'll just be a second," he says before he disappears. Kevin lets himself be held in place, but Jughead floats straight by. 

"Juggie, baby!" she calls. "Come over here for a second!"

He looks like he's bracing himself. It stings, but she guesses she's sort of earned it. "Hey, Big E."

"Are you going to the drive in this weekend? They're playing dorky old sci fi films."

"Oh, yeah? How dorky?"

"Director is widely accepted to be the worst ever dorky. The main actor died before filming was done and they didn't reshoot dorky."

Jughead whistles through his teeth. It's adorable. She very nearly tells him so. "Wow, that is dorky."

"So I'll see you there?"

Jughead squeezes his eyes closed, tightly and quickly. "Listen, Ethel, we've been doing this for years. I do like you, really, but-"

"No, this - No. I'm going with Dilton. I just thought you'd like to know."

 

Anyone else might've quirked his eyebrow at her choice of companion, but Jughead Jones doesn't care about gossip. It's part of why she loves him. Instead, he says, "Oh. Then, sure, I might see you."

 

"They'll have fifty cent popcorn," she adds.

He perks considerably. "Oh, yeah? You'll definitely see me there. Seeya, Ethel."

He joins Kevin at the bar and leans over to bump their shoulders together. Kevin loops their feet around each other when Jughead pulls away. Kevin, at least, smiles this sweet little smile that Betty Cooper smiles at Archie, and that Ethel smiles at Jughead, and Ethel gets the distinct feeling she wasn't supposed to have seen any of it.

"Kevin is such a good guy," Dilton says, sliding back across from her, "I haven't had a partner I so enjoyed working with since - well, since you, freshman year."

"I think they're dating," she almost says. "I think they're together, and I am such a fool." Jughead didn't say anything, though, about Dilton. They aren't dating, of course, but it sounded that way, and he said nothing. She figures she owes him the same. "I think we'll see them at the film tomorrow," she says instead.

"Oh, really? Jughead with Kevin?"

"What's so surprising?"

Dilton smirks around his french fry. "Just that Kevin's kind of a stiff."

\---

He debated dressing up. You should dress up for a date, he reasoned, even if it was just sitting in your car. Then again, this isn't a date. For it to be a date, both parties must agree that it is, and it must be an outing with specific romantic intent. One out of two just wasn't enough. He settles for a nicer sweatshirt over one of his few t-shirts and cruises out.

 

She looks like she might've had the same thought, which makes him double check his criteria. Is it still a date if both parties know, but neither party tells the other? It can't be, right? It must require agreement. He's never been on a date.

"Hey, Dilton!" She says, and then holds  up a small duffel bag. "I brought blankets and soda! So we don't have to leave your car running."

"Capital," Dilton says, and then they're pulling away.

Ethel finds popcorn and settles back in a few minutes after the movie's started. "Popcorn. What've I missed?"

"Very little. Thank you."  Dilton doesn't know a lot about movies, not llike Ethel does. She knows the history of the actors and director and every little thing that went into making this.

"Of course," she says, shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth, "I like romantic comedies, myself. I know more about these old science fiction things from Jughead and Chuck."

"I'm a fan of horror, myself. Of course, this cheesey stuff is fun and all, but have you ever seen a really well done slasher flick?" Dilton waves one hand dramatically. "Magnifique."

"Yeah? Show me your favourite horror film sometime." 

They fall again into companionable silence, neither watching the film,really, but neither quite looking away. "Hey, Ethel," Dilton says, "what did you have planned tonight?"

"It's not a big deal, Dilton. I didn't break any plans to be here, don't worry."

"No, you're kinder than that." her eyes widen and she turns not to look at him. Dilton doesn't really know why she's embarrassed. It's just fact. "You just sounded a little upset last night."

"I was just. Well. There was supposed to have been a meeting? With the homecoming committee? About themes and picking bands and things. But, also, kind of a social gathering? Anyway, it got canceled. They still went out, but. Made the plans without me."

Dilton keeps his eyes on the screen. The boom falls into the shot again. "You ever feel like a side character?"

"What?"

 

"Like maybe the whole world revolves around Archie and Betty and Veronica, and we're just there when the plot demands for them."

"Sounds kind of defeatist for you, Dilton."

"Well, that's the thing. I have my science. I have my movies and Chuck and Raj and my inventions. And," he says, plowing on, "my health. My family. I have you. 

"So what if we're their side characters? They're ours."

"Yeah," Ethel says. "You're right. I know you're right. It's just hard to remember sometimes." She takes a sip of her soda. "It'd still be nice to be the main character though. The actual one that gets to, like, fall in love, and stuff."

"Y'know, Ethel I," Dilton stops and closes his mouth. "I know you're Deadset on winning Jughead over."

"I'm not,really," she interrupts. "I'm no Moose. I'll never win him over. But the chase is fun."

"I. Well." Dilton clears his throat. "I enjoy your company. So much I had to remind myself this wasn't a date."

 

"It's kind of a date," Ethel says. "I mean, nobody said it wasn't, right? We coud say it is."

"It could - it could be an experiment. If it doesn't work out everything can go back to normal."

"Yeah, okay. That sounds like a plan. We've missed most of the movie."

Dilton shrugs. "I own it. You could come over and watch it sometime."

He looks over to her for maybe the first time since they got there and watches her tap the popcorn box to shake loose good kernels. She glares at the box like it's done her a personal offense, and he almost, almost laughs, but he wouldn't want her to take it the wrong way. So he coughs and clears his throat to speak.

"Ethel," he starts, "would it be too forward to ask to hold your hand?"

She snorts. "I'm scandalised, Mr. Doiley. Buuuuut it is dark enough, I think. Maybe we wouldn't be caught." in less time than he'd really prepared himself for it to take, her much larger hand curls around his petit one. It's soft, and warm, and he'd only held hands once with his middle school girlfriend, and somehow this is much better.

Dilton settles back to watch the last twenty minutes of the disaster before them.

 

Ethel hesitates before she takes his hand, half-convinced he'll call it some kind of joke and pull away. But it's Dilton. Dilton who is reasonable and factual and kind, and Ethel is not a stupid girl. He's got nothing to gain.

She doesn't forget Jughead when Dilton's fingers wrap gingerly around her own. She doesn't forget being left behind, and she doesn't forget fighting with her mirror. Yet, when her too-large hands fit so snugly in his too-small ones, it's hard to believe the world is as cruel as it can seem.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on IG @DevosVevo or tumblr @and-a-teeny-tiny-band


End file.
